4 Fortnite emotes have a rare feature that no other item has, here's what

It's no secret that certain emotes in Fortnite harbor special features. Be it scripted variants of the emote itself or certain characters behaving differently when using the said emote. While these are little more than Easter eggs, it's fun to come across them in-game.

That said, content creator and YouTuber Tabor Hill has come across four unique emotes in-game. While they don't exactly qualify as secretive or special by a long shot, they do feature a rather "cool" mechanic. Something which is not present in any other emotes in Fortnite.

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Fortnite gives these emotes the "silent treatment"

Emotes are loud. Make no mistake. When they are played in-game, not hearing them is next to impossible. At times, after prolonged usage, they can start sounding annoying as well. Keeping that aspect aside, some of them use copyrighted music.

For those who play the game without having to stream, it's not an issue. However, playing copyrighted music can lead to several issues for individuals who make content based on gameplay.

Generally, copyrighted sound/music is muted by the platform/service being used when identified. Other times, a general warning is issued, and if the individual continues down the path, their content is eventually removed, and the channel is slapped with a warning.

Thankfully, Epic Games added a workaround by allowing streamers to mute all copyrighted music in-game itself. This means that even using emotes containing copyrighted music will not be played in Fortnite.

The Mute All option is a life-saver for streamers (Image via YouTube/Tabor Hill)

This feature is of great value, given the volume of emotes with copyrighted music. However, there are four emotes in-game that continue to produce audible noise despite the option being on. Discovered by Tabor Hill and others, the four emotes are Pump Me Up, Build Up, Slalom Style, and Triumphant.

They all fall under the Icon series set and are, by and large, hugely popular in-game. Although the music/sound is muted, their footsteps and certain ambient noises are quite audible. Here's what the content creator had to say about them:

"Even though you have muted copyrighted music, you still at least get some audible noise from the emote. Hey, I'll take that because I avoid copyright strikes like the plague due to copyrighted music, so normally when I play these, it's just complete silence; so I'll even take a little bit of sound, which makes them somewhat useful for me - a content creator."

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Why do these Fortnite emotes function as they do?

If it is argued that Fortnite creates its sound in layers and thus switching off the copyrighted one still allows general sound to stay on, this would be wrong. If this were true, other emotes would have followed suit.

However, since this phenomenon is only limited to four specified emotes, it makes no sense from a technical standpoint. It's almost as if these emotes have a mindset of their own. Here's what Tabor had to say about it:

"Why is it the case for these four emotes? I have no idea. Is it just a glitch? I don't think so because why would they just pick four emotes out of all the copyrighted ones in-game to do this to?"

While this remains a mystery, it's a delightful one nonetheless. Since it doesn't affect gameplay or threaten to violate copyright norms, having it active in-game is perfectly fine. Perhaps one day, Epic Games itself may reveal this mystery and explain why this occurs.